Welcome to the Abbottoir

Tony Abbott is a misogynist, sexist, homophobic prick, a bully, a racist, a liar and is the worst PM in Australian history.

I'm quoting here. These are the words which introduce a Facebook page entitled ''Tony Abbott - Worst PM in Australian History''. The page was created even before Abbott has even been sworn into office. Within days the page received more than 166,000 ''likes''.

The comments on the page are as predictable as they as personal: ''Soon, Australia will faced be the spectre of [Abbott] … John Wayne walks his way around the corridors of foreign powers whilst representing Australia overseas.''

Abbott was pilloried because his daughters were active on the campaign trail. One comment had him ''pimping his daughters'' as if the three young women, who never caused a moment of controversy, were willing street-walkers. They weren't even allowed to be attractive. Another commentator: ''I don't care about his daughters, they are not hot at all.''

The community of people that hived around the ''Worst PM in Australian History'' website is a celebration of closed minds. The general tenor of the prefabricated outrage is a contempt for the democratic process itself. As one comment put it: ''This is an illegitimate government. It is an illegal government. And it will get no co-operation from us. Everything it sends to the Senate will be sent back, or put on hold, until it resigns or is removed.''

Completely absent from all the petulance is any sense of irony about its own intolerance.

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The communications revolution, with the rise and rise of social media, has created the architecture for fundamentalism, where echo chambers of like-minded zealots affirm their righteous indignation at the cultural stupidity of the unbelievers. The ugliness of the fundamentalism is confined to neither right nor left. It sits at both extremes of the political pendulum.

It is no wonder that Abbott was so cautious and constrained during the election campaign. An entire sub-culture exists to analyse whatever he says and prove it is either wrong or stupid or both. Technology has vaulted ahead even since John Howard was prime minister and Howard hating was the national sport at university arts faculties, TAFE colleges, unions and sections of the then Fairfax Media.

The internet is so accommodating to the culture of abuse and group stalking that by the standards of political discourse on social media the ''Tony Abbott is the Worst PM in History'' site is mainstream. It wasn't tough enough for some. Another Facebook page sprung up, ''F--- Tony Abbott'', which has had 16,000 ''likes''.

Numerous chat sites and blogs operate as open sewers, such as the Facebook page, ''Tony Abbott is a s--- c---'', which had 26,800 ''likes'' the last time I checked. Typical of the contributions on this site was: ''Its only a matter of time till facebook bans this page so swear it up while we have the chance. Oh and ASIO will be reading all this so f--- you c---- too, get a proper job faggots.''

Much more insidious than the personality disorders of individual ranters and stalkers, the army of trolls, are the organisations that function like trolls, hiding their true agendas as they manufacture dissent. A classic example is GetUp!, which operates on behalf of big unions, the Greens and the hard-left while presenting itself as a community-based organisation.

Some trolls create trolling movements, with the aim of not just engaging in debate but in destroying the careers of chosen targets. The most famous were the two social media campaigns aimed at the broadcaster Alan Jones by targeting his advertisers.

A supposedly impartial organisation, Change.org (another American import like GetUp!), actively courted Jones' obliteration, sending out media releases about the number of companies which had joined the boycott. At its peak, the boycott petition gained 103,000 supporters. The organiser turned out to be a Greens supporter. At the height of the frenzy, the retail magnate Gerry Harvey, after ordering his company, Harvey Norman, to pull its advertising from the Jones show, put the question: ''You have to ask are you part of a lynch mob?''

Because these echo-chambers create such a din, their adherents come to believe they represent potent social movements. The campaigns to destroy Jones through viral trolling both bounced off the wider community. Alan Jones' show never ceased to dominate its timeslot and quickly returned to a full line-up of advertisers.

On a much broader scale, for six years we have seen an unremitting campaign of caricaturing Abbott as a man of unworthy ineptitude, the Speedo-wearing misogynist.

Now, with Abbott as prime minister, those who have patronised him in the name of tolerance cannot even acknowledge his grand gesture of working on behalf of the most disadvantaged Australians by taking on the indigenous affairs portfolio. His ally in this, Warren Mundine, a member of the Bundjalung people and former national president of the Labor Party, has been disdained via trolling hives as a sell-out for daring to argue that Aboriginal people can think outside a one-party state imposed on them by highly moral white people.

No nuance. No concessions. No goodwill. No irony. And on September 7, no success. When the electorate moved, the hives were pushed aside. They now buzz with rage.